Raise It Up Stud @ Pala Casino

While visiting Pala Casino to check out House Money yesterday, I ran across the new ShuffleMaster game Raise It Up Stud. It has the familiar ShuffleMaster Ante, Blind, and 1x-3x Play bets, and there’s a 3-card community board. There’s no dealer hand; you’re just playing against a Paytable. You’re dealt 3 cards at the start of the hand, and you can bet 3x on your first 3 cards, or check. The dealer then turns up the first community board card, and you can now 2x bet your hand, or check. The dealer then turns up the 2nd community card, and you must either 1x bet to see the river, else fold. If you make a pair of Ten’s or better, you win even money on your ante, and odds on your Play bet. If you make trips or better, you win odds on your Blind bet. If you don’t make Ten’s or better, or if you fold, you lose all your bets.

I’d say the game plays like a more forgiving (easier) version of Mississippi Stud. You can raise a winning hand as soon as you make it, and you get paid odds on your raise. However, you can only make one bet per hand (in Mississippi Stud, you can bet a winner on all streets). But you can check until you make a hand, or have to call a draw. The Play and Blind paytables are listed below. Combining your three hold cards with the three community cards, you make your best 5 card hand.

This game is probably the long-awaited replacement for Let It Ride, which the dealers call “Let It Die”. They all hate the game, because they either stand dead at an empty table, or they just push back bets until someone occasionally wins on a 1x bet on the River. At Viejas, dealers keep their own tokes, so they hope the floor supervisor closes the game as early as possible, so they can go deal a game where they can make money. Hence, “Let It Die”.

Everyone was having a great time at Raise It Up last night, and the dealers were making lots of tokes. (Tokes are especially +EV on the Ante/Play bets; a nice little angle.) You make a lot more hands with 6 cards (compared to 5 in Let It Ride). Plus, you’re supposed to bet a lot more hands in this game than Let It Ride (small pairs, gut shot straight draws, 3 pay cards on 3rd St, etc.)

Raise It Up Stud Play Paytable

Hand

Payout

Royal Flush

100:1

Straight Flush

20:1

Four-of-a-Kind

10:1

Full House

6:1

Flush

5:1

Straight

4:1

Three-of-a-Kind

3:1

Two Pairs

3:2

10’s or Better

1:1

Others

lose

Raise It Up Stud Blind Bonus

Hand

Payout

Royal Flush

1000:1

Straight Flush

200:1

Four-of-a-Kind

30:1

Full House

4:1

Flush

3:1

Straight

2:1

Three-of-a-Kind

1:1

Others

push

Basic Strategy

The theoretical house edge for this game is 3.5022%. Below is a simple, intuitive strategy that simulates at -3.70%. The decisions on 4th and 5th Streets are fairly obvious, and you can easily learn the 3rd Street strategy.

where “gap” is the sum of the distance between all cards (e.g., 456 is 0-gapped, 457 is 1-gapped, JT87 is 1-gapped, JT76 is 2-gapped, etc.).

Advantage Play

Even with ideal (computer) 6-way collusion, you can’t get the house edge below 0.93%.

Eliot Jacobson has published a simple hole-carding strategy that yields from +7.6% to +62.7% depending on which board card you see. Pala procedure places the bottom board card on 4th St, so I guess it’s only worth +7.6% when you see it.

GL @ Pauma tonight. I’m not driving any more this weekend 😦 I won $90 at Raise It Up last night, with all the profits coming from 3x raising 467d. The dealer (John) said I didn’t have a winning hand yet it, but was otherwise ok with my raise. (I hate it when dealers strongly disapprove of basic strategy.) He turns up 3d on 4th St, and I have a straight flush draw! He turns up Ad on 5th St, and I have a flush! I didn’t hit the SF on 6th St, but I won $95 on the hand.

Earlier, I 3x raised AT7d and made a flush for $95. I got even with that hand. Most people won’t 3x or 2x bet anything but “no-brainers” (winning hands). I’m always the only person who 3x or 2x bets small pairs or draws. On the other hand, lots of people 1x bet 3 pay cards (they should fold), while other people won’t even 1x call a small pair on 5th St! (On the other hand, Let It Ride is essentially a 100% “no-brainer” basic strategy.)

I’ll update the post with some numbers showing the difference between checking and betting some important hands. Maybe we’ll get people to bet their hands in this game.

Got stuck, and couldn’t win a hand in 60 antes 😦 Left at 3am, and there were still players. A first-timer hit a straight flush for $1100. Nice when you dealt the quad 3’s to that guy on 4th St. The best I made was a full house on a 3x Play bet.